new teaching resources on the victorians

The UK National Archives has produced a collection of documents relating to the lives of the Victorians, aimed at any teacher or student engaged in a local study of the Victorian period. The sources could be used to help provide a sense of period and show pupils the type of sources they may encounter when looking at material in their local archive, museum or record office. The collection includes pictures, drawings, maps, photographs, advertisements, reports, census pages, letters and newspaper extracts. The entire collection plus transcripts can be downloaded as a zip file, to make them easy for you to use in the classroom.

These documents can be used alongside the National Archive interactive Victorians website which also contains a huge number of sources on the period from The National Archives and objects from London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The Archive claims it would be helpful for the pupils to watch the opening video in Start Here on their Victorians website before looking at the sources to get the most out of the questions and activities as well as looking at general guidance questions below on how to evaluate and understand documents. Go for it!